Summer Time Rendering has been the most flip floppy, back and forth, love it and hate it anime I’ve seen in a hot minute. Hell people can’t even agree on what it’s called. Half the Internet writes Summertime Render and the other half puts Summer Time Rendering. This article will contain light spoilers throughout to add context to my points but I’ll stay away from the MAJOR shit as much as I can. As I watch this mystery anime with Kinky I constantly find myself really invested one second and completely dissatisfied the next. After thinking about why, I came to the conclusion that traditional mysteries and anime mysteries often treat the audience’s attention in different ways. Traditional mysteries are often written in ways where the audience can follow along and “solve” the mystery themselves. When done correctly this can make for a unique narrative where the audience feels like they’re playing an active part in the investigation even though they can’t actually affect the outcome. Still, it’s a fun mind game to play IF you’re in the mood for that type of content. Let’s see a mystery that breaks what I just said with the example of Persona 4 as even though it’s in an anime style, I consider it closer to a traditional mystery.
Persona 4 is a mystery game with other elements and while it is clearly in the anime style and incorporates supernatural elements, it’s written in a way where the audience can absolutely follow along and use deductions to figure out who the killer is. Now is it easy? Fuck no if you’re unfamiliar with mysteres. I remember on my first watch through my dumbass, and the Let’s Players I watched, had no clue who the killer was right up until the end of the game. And even then the game had to basically spell it out for the three of us. Granted I was a younger and stupider man with less experience analyzing writing at the time, but still. Yet once the game laid it out for me, I felt stupid as hell. It was completely possible to find the killer, hell they were right in your face the whole time and they fit the profile you were building up completely. To me, that’s my favorite form of mystery, assuming I’m not dead tired after a long day's work. If you’re too tired it can feel as though you’re completing a chore, making your brain continue to work and piece together information even after doing that all day. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the more typical type of anime mystery I mentioned earlier.
Still a bussin' experience if you haven't played it yet.
My main problem with a ton of mystery anime is that they often incorporate supernatural elements. And not just one or two, I’m talking about a plethora of shit. So far Summer Time Rendering, after starting off seemingly about tracking down a single killer monster that pretends to be human, has now introduced a list of elements including time travel, super strength, shapeshifting, cloning, the threat of an apocalypse, shadow powers, communication through space and time, and more. But why do I not like this stuff? Well because after a while it becomes virtually impossible to “solve” the mystery along with the cast, and it becomes stupid to even theory craft. You can sit there for 30 minutes after an episode, trying to put together clues and think about what will happen next, and then discover it doesn’t matter at all because actually the shadow demon was just the right hand of Googlar, The Dark One who can bend space to his will. So all the past clues you put together about character’s locations were useless as fuck. So then you throw out space and try to note appearance BUT OH SHIT Googlar The Dark One can also turn into animals or objects so you wasted your time there too. When so many abilities and rules get stacked on top of each other I end up turning my brain off and at that point the characters either make or break the anime cause I know the main mystery doesn’t have my attention. Persona 4 was careful enough to include supernatural elements, while making sure those elements didn’t interfere with your ability to solve the mystery unlike a lot of anime. But you know what? Sometimes that’s all right. I think that a lot of mystery anime are more concerned with surprising the audience with how deep the rabbit hole goes than constructing a good mystery and that’s okay. Not everyone wants to sit there feeling like they’re back on the job trying to catch an imaginary killer or monster.
Crime never sleeps, kid. Only Snooze does.
At the end of the day I think both styles of mystery have their place. If you want your audience to respect the investigation and follow along, you need to craft that shit especially well and drop clues for them to ponder without throwing in random curveballs that make it feel like the plot and “killer” are entirely unpredictable. If you just want to make your audience entertained then you can get away with going more for the shock factor that Googlar The Dark One has 70 powers and it’s going to take a while for the cast to find a way to beat his overpowered ass and solve the case. I know I have a personal preference for the first type of mystery, but hey maybe that’s just because I’m only doing some part-time shit right now. Are you watching Summer Time Rendering? Do you prefer mysteries you can solve, or mysteries that go crazy? Take out your notepad, ask the suspect some questions, and catch the killer in the comments below!
